We hear excerpts from the City Club of Portland's Ballot-Palooza event.
For 4 months, 9 committees, made up of 94 City Club member-volunteers, studied proposed and possible ballot measures that Oregonians might vote on in November. On August 20, members of the club debated issues such as marijuana legalization and driver cards.

Host Jen Davis speaks with Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. about his support for Oregon Ballot Measure 92, which would require food manufacturers to label products that contain genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
Greenfield was in Portland to unveil "Food Fight Fudge Brownie," an update on the popular "Fudge Brownie" flavor, which is designed to draw attention to Measure 92.

We speak with Gordy Molitor, Interim Executive Director of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force about the organization's mission and projects, the federal lawsuit to stop mining in the National Forest, and the upcoming fundraiser, "Restoring Volcano Country".

Grassroots women activists Ynanna Djehuty from the U.S, Olanike Olugboji from Nigeria and Jampa from Tibet are live in the studio for an exclusive discussion about their vision for change and the work they do on the ground to dismantle oppression, empower women and shift the paradigm. Ynanna, Olanike and Jampa are on the World Pulse Live 2014 tour and will be speaking on Thursday September 25th at the World Trade Center in Downtown Portland at 7pm. World Pulse is a Portland based non-profit that connects "women through digital technology to bring women’s voices out of the shadows and on to the world stage."

We speak with local people involved with Don't Shoot Portland about Justice for Mike Brown; the end of police and extrajudicial killings everywhere; and ending systemic violence upon communities of color. Guests are Jessie Sponberg (Community Activist); Teressa Raiford (Political Activist, Organizer); Katrina Calhoun (NAACP member Community Organizer); and Ben Glas (Student, Videographer working on documenting the group's efforts).

Political Perspectives on 11/23/11

Political science professor Thomas Ferguson on the failure of the "Super Committee"

Host Michelle Schroeder Fletcher interviews Thomas Ferguson, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute, about the significance of the failure of the Congressional budgetary Super Committee and what it bodes for the future.

Ferguson says, "Read the fine print on the 'crisis' in Social Security and you discover that even critics, such as Peter Orszag (President Obama’s former OMB chief), admit that under their pessimistic assumptions Social Security payments might rise by all of one percent of GDP by 2050! Social Security is obviously a non-problem, especially in the middle of the Great Recession.

"Health care and military are different. Both are industries in which true competition is rare. In both, the policy challenge is to face down oligopolies protected by powerful lobbies. Congress could, for example, save trillions of dollars in the long run by allowing the government to bargain down pharmaceutical prices, junking 'fee for service' pricing, requiring a single, integrated system for billing and reporting, banning obvious conflicts of interests such physicians owning shares in testing companies, and requiring serious cost comparisons of what treatments really work.

"But these steps, like seriously rethinking American military strategy, don't seem to be on the agenda of a Congress that openly sells leadership and committee posts to the highest bidders and luxuriates in insider stock trades."

They will discuss "Decade of Fear," which has been described as a journalistic memoir. Shephard conducted hundreds of interviews worldwide and wove them together to describe the decade since 2001 and looked at how the West’s “solutions” for terrorism only served to exacerbate the problem.

They discuss "Decade of Fear," which has been described as a journalistic memoir. Shephard conducted hundreds of interviews worldwide and wove them together to describe the decade since 2001 and looked at how the West’s “solutions” for terrorism only served to exacerbate the problem. Temporarily banned from Guantanamo for her reporting she has interviewed leaders and common people from the cities and the border territories of Pakistan. She has repeatedly gone to Mogadishu, in embattled Somalia to tell the story of this war devastated country. She reported from the streets of Yemen covering the future Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman.

Luisah Teish will speak at The Natural Way about learning to love the Earth, our Mother, and will share her personal stories of growing up in the South and her relationship to the land. She will recount and examine cultural myths that have mis-educated us into alienation from Our Mother Earth. Teish will identify the affects this estrangement has on the individual, the human community and the Earth Herself, help us contact this wounding and to begin to release it through visualization, chanting and conversation. Her teaching is based on material from the upcoming book "On Holy Ground: Committment and Devotion to Sacred Land," co-authored with Leilani Birely, a Hawaiina Kahuna and Hula teacher. LuisahTeish is an initiated elder (Iyanifa) in the Ifa/Orisha tradition of the West African Diaspora, and she holds a chieftaincy title (Yeye’woro) from the Fatunmise Compound in Ile Ife, Nigeria.

"Unless you change how money works, you change nothing. We live in an infinite growth economy, in other words -- a ponzi scheme. Infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible. Those species who cannot get out of their paradigm are doomed to go extinct. Can we disengage from our paradigm?" Host Per Fagering speaks with Michael C. Ruppert, who is probably best known for having accurately predicted the 2008 financial crash, Peak Oil and its impacts. In April of this year he issued a compelling and detailed alert on Collapsenet that warned of a major economic implosion, followed by massive civil unrest starting in late July which is still unfolding and leading to “the collapse of human industrial civilization”.

Michael C. Ruppert, author of “Crossing the Rubicon”, “Confronting Collapse” and the subject of the 2009 critically acclaimed global documentary sensation “Collapse” spoke on the collapse of human industrial civilization, relocalization and a new species he calls Post-Petroleum Human at the First Unitarian church on the tenth anniversary of the attacks which changed the world forever. His appearance also marked the tenth anniversary of his lecture before 1,000-plus at PSU which became the world-famous video “Truth and Lies of 9-11”

Over a long career, Ruppert, currently the Founder and C.E.O. of Collapse Network with members in 65 countries, and host of the hit Lifeboat Hour on the Progressive Radio Network, has been a pioneering investigative journalist breaking major exposés including the cover-up of the friendly-fire killing of pro-football star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

Far from being a pessimist, Ruppert is optimistic for the future of those, especially younger, generations who can see and adapt to a new and rewarding way of life centered around local food production, community, and balance and dialogue with the Earth that gives us life. An adherent of Gaian spirituality, Ruppert has been recently featured in the just-released critically-acclaimed Australian documentary Anima Mundi which also includes interviews with David Holmgren – co-founder of Permaculture, John Seed – Deep Ecology, Stephan Harding – Gaian Ecology, Vandana Shiva – Human Rights, Michael Reynolds – Earthships (as seen in the movie Garbage Warrior), Noam Chomsky – Activism, Dr Mark O’Meadhra – Integrative Medicine, and Dr Christine James– Psychology

Three people were arrested in New Orleans Thursday outside the headquarters of British Petroleum in an act of non-violent civil disobedience.

KBOO interviewed one of those arrested.

They were protesting the ongoing refusal of BP to acknowledge the extent of damage from last year’s oil spill, and the recent declaration of the company that the disaster is over, and no further compensation is needed.

In the last few weeks, videos and photos have been posted on the internet by local fishermen and residents showing dripping tarballs up to two feet long that have been washing up on the shore.

Activists brought some of these tarballs to the protest at BP yesterday, but company officials refused to examine this evidence of ongoing contamination.

The three arrested protesters were released today, and face charges of ‘trespassing’.

No BP officials have yet been charged for the worst oil spill in history, and BP continues to operate in the Gulf.

Host Michelle Schroeder-Fletcher speaks with Joni Seager and Cynthia Enloe about their book, REAL STATE OF AMERICA ATLAS, which draws back the curtain on
our complex nation to reveal the myriad realities of the American experience-from our changing demographics to patterns of home ownership to the kinds
of food we eat. The atlas upends many long-held myths and shows us who we are today.

Cynthia Enloe is research professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and has appeared on NPR and written numerous articles on feminism,
militarization, and globalization.

Joni Seager is professor and chair of global studies at Bentley University in Boston and recently served as a consultant to the United Nations on environmental
and feminist policy issues.

Comments

Please ask Mr. Naito if his love of democracy extends to his business. Would he be willing to turn his development firm into a employee run cooperative corporation, giving ownership and organizational rights to employees. Mr. Naito's concern for democracy probably ends at doors to his corporation. Mr. Naito looks at this battle to develop the Hood River riverfront property as a public realtions battle. He will promise the community jobs and the city council financial support, and the council will eye the property tax revenue as a benefit to the community. If he is successful, once again we will be selling our responsibility to the land and the river for a short term gain. Mr. Naito cares little for the community, but operates on greed. If the environmental laws and regulations were not in place he would not be concerned at all with the impact of his development on the river, the wild life, and the ability of people to enjoy what nature have given us for free.

Bravo for having this debate, though. And controlling the civility of the debate.